Peacock and palanquin, Lacquered without, within. This is the jasmine-scented bride Resting her fairy toes inside. Joss-sticks and incense sweet. The perfume of her feet Creates around her paradise. I also find it rather nice. A Chinese tale, you know, Works upward from below. The sense of mine is none the worse If taken backward, verse by verse. * * * * * "Frederick ----, 14, was summoned for failing to display a white front light on a bicycle and pleaded guilty. Policewoman ---- stated the facts, and was fined 5s."--_Local Paper._ Most discouraging. * * * * * "Florists by the thousand for cutting. They are also nice for borders round grass-plots, along hedges, round shrubs, etc."--_Dutch Bulb Catalogue_. We should not dare to treat a British florist like this. * * * * * [Illustration: _Bright Beginner_ (_as opponent is serving_). "DOES THE BALL COME TO ME NOW?"] * * * * * CHARIVARIA. "The English comedians are great," Mr. DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS is reported to have told an interviewer. He has already accepted an invitation, we understand, to visit the Law Courts and hear Mr. Justice DARLING ask, "Who is MARY PICKFORD?" * * * A turkey with four legs has been born in Purley. This attempt to divert attention from the visit of Miss MARY PICKFORD seems to have failed miserably. * * * "The increased wages in the catering trade," says an employer, "will be borne by the public." How he came to think out this novel plan is what mystifies the man in the street. * * * There is one reason, we read, why tea cannot be sold cheaper. If "The Profiteer" is not the right answer, it's quite a good guess. * * * No burglar seems to visit the houses of the profiteers, says a Labour speaker. Perhaps they have a delicacy about dealing with people in the same line of business. * * * For the seventh successive time, says a news item, there are no prisoners for trial at Stamford Quarter Sessions. We can only remind the Court that bulldog perseverance is bound to tell in the end. * * * It is fairly evident that the Americans fully realised the physical impossibility of having American bacon and Prohibition in their own country at the same time. * * * Western Texas, says a cable message, is being eaten bare by a plague of grasshoppers. Before Prohibition set in a little thing like that would never have been noticed in Texas. * * * Some of the new rich, says a gossip, only wear a suit once. There are others like that, only it is a much longer once. * * * "A healthy boy's skin should be well tanned after a holiday," says a health-culture writer. Surely not, unless he has done something to deserve it. * * *